Unlike lots of people who think that bodyweight training is only push-ups and pull-ups you already know that there is a wide variety of exercises and it is possible to control training impact with technique.

Naturally, we cannot present only a fraction of information that you may need but we are trying to provide you with basic knowledge to move further. To success you need to do only 4 things:

Think
Train
Eat
Rest

If one of the points is missing then your chances to succeed decrease.

Firstly, you progress while you rest, not while you train. You muscles recover after workload and stress, getting stronger and more enduring (или tougher. more enduring не звенит).

Secondly, if you do not eat well it really does not matter how you train. You are bound to fail. Imagine that your body is a car and you need to drive it from A to B. If you fuel your car with quality petrol the task is quite simple. If you try to fuel it with anything it is not designed for your car will fail halfway to the destination B.

Thirdly, you must train. Training makes you progress. It should provide enough stress to be a challenge for you. Remember, our bodies have evolved because of adaptations and they are good at adapting to stress. Take care of your training and the body will do the rest.

Fourthly, you really should think. You know already, that there are no magic pills and programmes and wonderful machines that do all the work for you. Everything you get results from smart hard work. You should train and analyse your results, especially when you hit your walls and reach your plateaus.

Your results and your looks are the result of what you have been doing. If you want to look after your idol you must not repeat everything he or she does but have to try to understand what and why they do this or that. Only after applying thought you can use it yourself.

There is an example of a programme that was used by one of the top athletes of our site (now former, since he got into bodybuilding), Ilya Gorodnichev:

Dips with elbows back
Dips with elbows sideways
Plyometric dips (with a clap, with a 180/30 deg turn)

Training sessions can be built in two ways:

Endurance training: many sets with 15-20 push-ups and 10-15 pull-ups with rest between sets 1.5 minutes or less
Muscle mass training: slow negatives and 8-12 reps per set with rest between sets 1.5 minutes or less

Typically Ilya splits his sets in two days. For example, he does sets 1-3 on the first day and sets 4-6 on the second day. Or he does pulling sets on the first day and pushing sets on the second.

To make it clear again: you have to approach this kind of training gradually. If you try to do this right away it will practically kill you and you might not even comlpete a half of it. That is also why you do not have to use any ready-made programmes from glossy magazines and the Internet. At the same time, average workouter routines lack such volume and variety of exercises and this is why they cannot achieve what they want.

Do you remember the post about the optimal outcome (эээ…. это называется diminishing returns)?

Мой вариант:
Have you ever heard about the principle of diminishing returns?

It takes very little effort to gain the first tangible results (that is how “stand up and just do it” slogan works). The more you achieve on your way to your goal the harder it is to make another step. You can learn to do a pull-up in two or three weeks. Muscle-ups take much longer, from months to a year (depending on your level).

The point is that guys we watch on the videos and who do mind-boggling stints train to exhaustion like everyone else and they struggle with their sets and reps as well. The only thing that differs is that their sessions just seem impossible for an average human.

известная поговорка у велосипедистов: (It never gets easier, you just get faster)

When, at some point in time, 6 sets of 10 reps become too easy for you at this moment your progress stops. You have to challenge your body incessantly but do it gradually and precisely measured at the same time. This should never feel easy, not today, not tomorrow, not in a year. On the other hand, it is easier to keep the results you have achieved, it takes much less effort than to gain any new ground.

Do not forget that you constantly keep changing. What did not work in the beginning of the programme it might work now and it might become requisite in 3-6 months. Just remember, the further you are from the start, the more specific you should be. Yyour personal muscle group development, strength of joints and ligaments, chronic aches and injuries, your weak spots define your own specificity. That means you will have to personify your training and standard advice will not fit you anymore